Butterfly Effect
by ferociouscrayon
Summary: AU: "There are a lot of ends to which a sorceress can be used, especially in a world that hates and fears them."


I've been sitting on the idea for this story for the better part of ten years and I just need it out of my head.

* * *

_For this life, I cannot change._

* * *

It was a Friday.

It's well into the evening and the nine-to-fivers have long since gone home when his phone rings, but he's working late.

He's always working late.

He drags on the cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth and reaches for the mobile phone sitting beside him on the desk without looking up from his laptop. He swipes the screen to pick up the call, and knows it's Irvine before he's even put it to his ear.

"Hey, intelligence reports from Timber just came through."

Without having to ask, an airdrop request appears on his computer screen and he opens the file — transcriptions of recorded telephone calls and intercepted emails.

"We found the general's daughter."

"We're sure it's her?"

"The info's coming straight from Selphie. Caraway's trying to join the insurgency — showed up on the Owls' doorstep last night using the surname Heartilly."

Selphie, he thinks. So Timber hadn't been a waste of time after all. She'd certainly thought it was. He supposes she'll be glad to finally come home. She'd done nothing but complain since he sent her there, and he had three months worth of nasty text messages as proof.

"Poor Zone," he sighs, stretching back in his chair. "He already hates me."

"Well, maybe if you hadn't laughed in his face when he asked us for help," Irvine tells him.

"You try listening to _anything_ Zone says with a straight face."

Irvine goes quiet on the other end of the call.

"So what now?" he says after a moment, ignoring his comrade's remark.

"Call Selphie and tell her she'd better hurry and get them on the last westbound train."

"Kinda short notice, don't you think?"

"Timber is an active war zone, and the Owls are so incompetent that Zone will get her killed the first time he sends her out the door. I'm not taking any chances."

"If you say so."

"Like their sorry attempt to kidnap old man Deling a few months back. You remember how well that worked out. Your girlfriend almost came home in a body bag."

"Okay, okay."

"Pick them up at the station later tonight."

Irvine sighs on the other end of the call — "Sure, it's only Friday night. I don't have any plans."

"No, but you do have a job. And I'm sure Selphie would be thrilled to hear about your lukewarm reaction to the news that she's coming home when you haven't seen her in three months."

"You're a real shit friend, you know," Irvine tells him, only half kidding.

He doesn't laugh.

"I'll see you back at The Den."

He ends the call and pulls up the girl's picture on his laptop screen.

He smiles. A lion baring it's teeth.

* * *

It was Friday night, and Squall Leonhart was grateful.

It had been a hell of a week.

Galbadian General Fury Caraway's daughter had gone missing on Monday morning — disappeared from the national university here in Deling City — and the panic had been widespread. But, Squall was just surprised it hadn't happened sooner.

He's been prepared for months, ever since Selphie had disclosed the difficult nature of the general's relationship with his rebellious, bleeding-heart daughter, and her connections within the Timber resistance. And, of course, there were the girl's frequent public condemnations of the Galbadian occupation that often left him rolling his eyes. Typical outspoken university student, he'd thought, preaching about things she didn't truly understand.

He'd sent Selphie off to Timber — poor Zone never could say no to a pretty girl — and sat back, and waited.

But, now it's Friday, he thinks, and everything is finally in order. It's taken them entirely too long to reach this point, and every passing day that the operation doesn't advance is another day that Galbadia might finally trace their location and Balamb Garden becomes a mile-wide crater in the earth just like Trabia. He thinks of the girl's picture. Now, they have a bargaining chip.

It's nearly midnight and – unsurprisingly — raining. Irvine should be returning to The Den with both women shortly, and he needs a break. A few smokes. Maybe a drink.

But it's Friday night and the rest of Deling City has the same idea. The streets are crowded with people making their way from bar to club and back again. Clusters of drunk girls in too-short skirts squeal and crowd under umbrellas in an effort to stay out of the rain while packs of equally drunk men cat call after them. Everywhere there is music playing, horns honking, people shouting — too much noise. He turns down a side alley, desperate to get away from it, and thinks about how much he hates this city.

It's an inconvenience — the only decent joint being on the opposite end of the city center from The Den, but he's a creature of habit.

Also an inconvenience.

He sees the man approaching him in the shadows of the poorly lit street — sees the Galbadia Garden sigil glint in the lamplight on the lapel of his coat.

What a stupid thing to do, he thinks, in their line of work.

He pulls his knife from his belt, very much doubting that the man noticed. That was something you could always count on with these kinds of people.

As they pass one another, there is no mistaking the click of a hammer being pulled back, and he sidesteps to avoid the first bullet. The gunshot is deafening in such a confined space and even after all his years of combat, the sound still makes his ears ring.

He drops to the pavement as a second shot is fired and lunges forward, grabbing the man by the wrist and shoving the knife into his ribcage just below the underarm. The man seizes and then sags against him and Squall hears his gun clatter to the pavement. He slides the knife from the wound, warm blood soaking his hand, and the body crumples to the ground.

As he gets to his feet, he looks from the body spilling blood onto the wet cobblestone to his hand still curled tightly around the knife, and frowns.

Not good, he thinks and rips the sigil from the dead man's coat.

These half-hearted assassination attempts are beginning to worry him, but not because he thinks they might succeed. He worked for so long to successfully set up camp in this city and hates the idea of having his cover blown because G-Garden keeps sending SeeDs after him who are slow on the trigger. He hopes the police are too preoccupied looking for the Caraway girl to care about one dead mercenary.

He studies the face of the young man laying at his feet and wonders if he even was a SeeD, or just some poor cadet. He's glad he doesn't recognize him.

Guess it won't be the hotel lounge tonight, after all, he thinks, now that he's halfway across town and covered in someone else's blood. He sighs and slips the knife back into the case on his belt. This was his last good white t-shirt.

He nudges the body aside with the toe of his boot and turns to head back the way he came. Irvine will let him bum a few smokes when he gets in, but he'll have to go without the drink.

* * *

He's barely gotten inside The Den when, over the music and noise of the Friday night crowd, he hears _"Daddy, I'm home!"._

Amid the bright, pulsing lights, he can see Selphie shoving her way through the sea of men, waitresses, and dancers, spilling a number of drinks in her wake. She throws her arms around his waist and hugs him fiercely. She's so little her forehead rests against his chest — like being hugged by a child.

He doesn't hug her back.

"Don't call me that," he says.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want to think about what you call Irvine in bed."

"Don't be gross, Squall!" She laughs and pushes him away. "Anyway, I missed you and I'm super excited to be home. Timber was _so boring._"

Then she notices the blood.

"Ew. What happened to you?" she says, wrinkling her nose.

"Nothing," he says, looking over the top of her at the rest of the club. "Where is she?"

"I hope you didn't get blood on my dress," she continues as if she hadn't heard him, inspecting the front of her clothes.

"Selphie."

"She's in a private room in the back."

He makes a face at her. "Doing what? Giving a lap dance? Take her upstairs."

"Okay, okay! Geez!" she says, frowning and holding up her hands. "What's got you so grumpy?"

"Your boyfriend's incompetence. What the hell is Irvine thinking?"

"He's not my boyfriend!" she protests.

Squall rolls his eyes.

"Selphie, I don't care what he is. Just get Caraway upstairs. Now."

"She doesn't use her father's last name…" Selphie sulks.

Squall only glares at her.

"Okay, fine," she relents. "Gosh, you're in a rotten mood."

She turns to head for the back of the club.

"Go have a smoke. It'll make you feel better," she says, waving at him over her shoulder as she disappears back into the crowd.

He thinks that's exactly what he'll do. First he'll need to find Irvine and bum one — since the man is practically a walking cigarette dispenser — but only after ripping him a new asshole for leaving Caraway in the back room of a strip club unsupervised and threatening to send him back to Balamb if he fucks up again.

* * *

It's a short climb up three flights of stairs to his loft above the club and he's reached the top before he's had much of a chance to decide how best to handle this. He hates delicate situations. They require the sensitivity and consideration for others that he's never had. That's what he pays Irvine for. People like Irvine.

People do not like him. Being rude (as Selphie calls him, though he prefers "short" and "to-the-point") doesn't make you many friends.

But then, he isn't here to make friends. Not when he has people on his payroll to make friends for him.

He unlocks the front door and steps into the exposed brick entryway of his apartment. All the lights are on and there is a pair of small, black lace-up boots sitting just to the left of the doorway.

How nice of her to remove her shoes, he thinks. A princess.

He shifts his cigarette into the corner of his mouth and walks into the open apartment, shoes still on.

"Selphie?"

It's louder than he means for it to be, echoing back off the high, industrial ceiling. He glances up the staircase to his left. The lights are off in the bedroom upstairs.

"She's already left."

He turns and looks to his right to find her sitting with her arms crossed on one of the sofas at the opposite end of the loft, staring at him from under her hood. Even in the shadows, he can still make out the streaks of mascara on her cheeks.

"Must have just missed her."

But he doesn't miss in his peripheral vision the way she pulls her legs into her chest as he makes his way toward her. He stops at the coffee table sitting in front of her, and picks up the lighter resting beside a stack of old _Timer Maniacs_. He holds it up to his mouth, clicks it once, and holds the tiny flame that appears to the end of his cigarette. He inhales deep and looks down at her.

"You smoke in here?"

He doesn't, actually, but her being here makes him uneasy and why else do people smoke? But, he isn't going to tell her that. So, he ignores the remark and reaches down to push her hood back.

Long dark hair tumbles out around her perfectly white face.

His first thought is that she's pretty, with soft brown eyes, long eyelashes, and delicate facial features. And little. Like Selphie, but not. Her cowl-neck hooded pullover is fitted and her leather tights cling like a second skin.

His lips loosen around his cigarette.

Not like the pictures either, he thinks.

Her eyes grow wide and she leans away from him.

"Is that blood?" she squeaks, instinctively wiping at her face where he'd touched her.

He looks down at his right hand, realizing he'd forgotten about it.

"Haven't had a chance to shower yet," he says.

She attempts to sink further back into the sofa.

"Why am I here?"

He takes another drag on his cigarette and looks at her like he's bored.

"I won't hurt you."

She glares back at him like he's insulted her.

"I'm not afraid of you."

"Of course you are."

"You don't know what I'm capable of," she snaps.

"I know exactly what you're capable of," he replies, pulling his cigarette from his mouth and pointing to the slim silver bangle hanging around her right wrist — no more than a bracelet to the ignorant bystander. "So don't ask stupid questions like why you're here."

She continues to scowl at him.

"Selphie was right — you _are_ an ass."

He shrugs, and drags on his cigarette again.

"She also said I would be safe here," she says. "I don't believe her."

He blows a single smoke ring in her direction and she wrinkles her nose in disgust.

"Believe whatever you want," he says, and turns to head for the stairs. "I don't care."

"Wait! Squall—"

She says his name like she's known him for years. He hates it.

He pauses at the bottom of the staircase and looks back over his shoulder to find that she's followed him across the apartment. He shifts to face her and crosses his arms over his chest.

"Rinoa."

She hesitates at the sound of her name. His low tone of voice and accompanying black stare make it very clear that he doesn't appreciate her attempt at familiarity.

"I can't give you what you want," she says quietly.

He rolls his eyes.

"You don't know what I want."

"I'm not what you think am," she insists, taking another step closer to him.

"You're exactly what I think you are."

She's standing in front of him, close enough to make his breath hitch and pulse quicken. He wants to push her away.

"Please, just take me back to Timber."

He stares down at her, unflinching.

"No."

He uncrosses his arms and turns to continue up the stairs, but her tiny hand closes around his like a vice and he can feel her finger nails digging into the flesh of his palm as she yanks him back.

"Take me back to Timber," she says through clenched teeth.

He watches as her brown eyes flicker gold and her long hair stands on end. The tiny silver bracelet hisses and sparks. Her fingertips blacken and burn his skin, and dark veins spread out across her face. The air in the apartment grows heavy with magic and the lights begin to shudder.

So this is what it looks like, he thinks.

Rather than recoil as he knows she hopes he would, he curls his fingers over hers — gripping so tightly that she yelps in pain — and strikes her with a Confuse spell. He lets go and she immediately stumbles backward and collapses on the floor. The veins disappear from her face as she clutches her head.

"I'd heard those things don't hold up well," he says quietly, glancing down at the bangle around her wrist to find that it's tarnished.

When he meets her eyes again, she's crying.

"Looks like we'll need to get you a new one."

"Please don't make me stay here," she whimpers.

"I would say 'I'm sorry'," he says. "But, I'm not."

He continues up the stairs and heads straight into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. He can faintly hear a choked sob followed by a loud crash as she overturns what he assumes was the coffee table in her Confusion. The thought irritates him.

This is not what I need, he thinks, shrugging out of his bloodied t-shirt and stripping off his boots and jeans.

He turns on the shower, and pushes the handle all the way to _hot_. He needs to get in touch with Xu and arrange the girl's transport to B-Garden.

He flicks his cigarette into the toilet and steps over the threshold of the shower, into the searing water. He supposes he should feel guilty for using Para-Magic against her, but sympathy for others has never been something he's had in abundance and he's unnerved by how she destroyed her Odine bangle with so little effort. He considers how unfortunate it is that Silence can only disable Para-Magic.

Over the sound of the running water, he barely registers the sound of feet sprinting up the stairs and the bathroom door flies open before he has a chance to react. He can only grit his teeth and ask himself why he hadn't bothered to lock the door as she stands in the doorway and stares.

* * *

She struggles to not let the shock register on her face when she finds him standing naked under the rainfall head of a large, open shower. The accumulated condensation on the floor-to-ceiling glass pane that separates the shower from the rest of the bathroom hides nothing.

She hates that he's handsome — tall and athletic, sleek brown hair, and grey eyes, with a prominent scar that cleanly splits his angular face from his brow line to his cheekbone, and covered in more tattoos than she's ever seen on a single person.

The word "Lionheart" needled in bold script at the top of his ribcage just below his left pectoral, what looks to be a large, intricate compass inked on his left thigh, the silhouette of a lion's head stamped in the middle of his chest, a winged dragon stretching up his right side from his waist to his armpit, and a bright blue blossom with a blade through the center at his waistline just to the left of his navel are among the most prominent.

He, on the other hand, doesn't even seem surprised by her intrusion, and looks at her with same expression of boredom he had downstairs. So she marches right up to the shower, reaches past him and flips the handle to_ cold, _smiling when he curses and sidesteps out from under the torrent of frigid water now streaming from the shower head.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

"What the hell is wrong with _you_!?" she counters. "You Confused me!"

"And what would you have done if I hadn't?" he says. "You can't control your power."

His tone is smug and matter-of-fact, and it infuriates her.

"You can't keep me here," she shouts, ignoring him and continuing to press down on the shower handle. "Take me back to Timber!"

He's visibly angry now — chest heaving, hands fisted, glaring down at her through the sopping hair slicked to his face.

"Or what?" he challenges her. "You'll bring the down the whole building trying to kill me."

She hesitates, shocked by his accusation. She doesn't want to kill him. She doesn't want to kill anyone. Suddenly she wants to cry, knowing that's what he thinks of her.

"Go on, then," he tells her, pushing her hand away and turning the shower handle back toward_ hot_, exposing a tattoo of the goddess Shiva with her arms stretched overhead on the underside of his forearm. "You destroyed your bangle. There's nothing to suppress your abilities."

He steps back into the water and she is suddenly aware of how intimately close they are. Before she can stop herself, she makes the mistake of glancing down and the blood rushes to her face when she realizes that he's hard. She immediately moves away and his own face reddens as he realizes why.

"You're too afraid because you don't know how to control them," he tells her, ignoring the growing discomfort of their situation. "So don't march in here with a brave face and try to make demands."

She looks at him, gritting her teeth, and thinks about how much she hates him — for bringing her here, for assuming that she'd kill him for it. All because she's a witch.

Without thinking, she punches him in the jaw.

Shocked by the fact that it actually hurt, he swears and clutches the left side of his face.

"I'm _not_ afraid of you," she tells him again, red-faced. "And you can't keep me here."

And then she snaps the shower handle back to _cold_ and walks out of the bathroom, leaving him standing under the freezing water with a bruising jaw and a bloody lip.

* * *

He's standing in front of the mirror with a towel over his head, trying to talk himself out of shooting her when she reappears in the bathroom doorway.

"Where's my shit?" she demands without preamble.

He pulls the towel off his head and shifts to look at her.

She's only marginally proud when she sees him go red in the face again, but truly pleased when she sees that she's split his lower lip.

"What?"

"I had a duffle bag with my clothes, and phone, and computer. I brought it with me from Timber," she explains, her irritation tangible.

But he looks as disinterested as ever.

"Where is it?" she snaps.

"How should I know? Now get out."

"But you brought me here! I don't have any extra clothes, or soap, or shampoo! Anything!"

He makes no effort to stifle a long, lion-like yawn — mouth open wide and teeth bared — before dumping his towel on the bathroom floor.

"I'll text Irvine in the morning," he says as he stalks past her back out into the upstairs loft. "Until then, there's clean t-shirts and shorts in the drawers, and soap in the shower."

As she watches him walk away, she can make out the words "Liberi Fatali" tattooed in small, neat text at the base of his neck.

He flops down on the bed and tugs the sheets up around his waist before picking up a remote from the bedside table to turn on the television mounted on the opposite wall.

She grinds her teeth together. He's ignoring her.

What an asshole, she thinks, walking over to the bureau sitting below the television and rifling through the drawers until she finds a clean pair of boxer shorts and a t-shirt.

"What about a toothbrush?" she says.

He yawns again.

"Can't help you with that."

She fists her hands in the borrowed clothes, but says nothing and storms back into the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind her.

Gods, he wants to shoot her.

He knows what she thinks she's doing, and as inclined as he is to get up and kick open the bathroom door to tell her that intentionally being such an acute pain in the ass is only going to make her life harder, he rolls over and closes his eyes instead. He's had enough of her for one night.

And it's only been one night.

* * *

When she finally turns off the shower, her fingertips are wrinkled and when she wipes the fog from the mirror, her skin is blisteringly red. She has no idea what time it is, but her bloodshot eyes make it clear that she has no business being awake right now.

She gently towel dries and smoothes her hair before pulling on the borrowed t-shirt and boxer shorts, taking care to neatly fold her own clothes and set them on the bathroom counter. Her towel, however, she dumps on the floor next to his with a smile.

With no toothbrush she settles for taking a swig from the bottle of mouthwash beside the sink, swishing it around until her tongue burns, and spitting it into the sink.

She still looks like a mess when she checks in the mirror again, but at least she's clean. The only thing that's going to fix the rest is sleep. Lots of it. But when she glances over at the locked bathroom door, she realizes that the only bed in this apartment is his. The loft isn't exactly spacious and she's already seen that there's no guest bedroom.

The couch downstairs was comfortable enough if she could have a blanket. Maybe she can squeeze that one small kindness out of him.

Maybe.

She unlocks and opens the bathroom door to find that the television is off and he's apparently rolled over and fallen asleep. She briefly weighs the risk of waking him up, but decides on trying to quietly root through the chest of drawers in the dark. She's determined to not let him intimidate her. She made up her mind when she was brought here that under no circumstances would she be staying, no matter what he says or does.

Selphie had promised that she would be safe, hadn't she? That this would be the safest place in the world for her right now.

She very much doubts that.

Especially when the primary contents of the previously unopened drawers turn out to be firearm cases.

"Now what do you need?"

She nearly jumps out of her skin, and whips around to find him sitting up in bed, watching her — perfectly awake. The moonlight through the loft windows illuminates half of his face and casts shadows across his arms and chest.

"I was looking for an extra blanket," she snaps, ignoring the way the dragon on his torso seems to shift in the darkness. "Do you have one?"

He gives another long, leonine yawn, and she wonders if he always looks bored.

"No."

She scowls at him.

"What do you mean, 'no'?"

"I live alone."

She crosses her arms over her chest, conscious of the chill that's settling in now that her body temperature has come back down from the hot shower, made worse by the fact that her hair is still wet and soaking through the neck and shoulders of his t-shirt.

"Where am I supposed to sleep?" she asks.

He gestures at the empty side of the bed.

She balks.

"I'm sorry?"

He sighs and rubs his forehead.

"You sleep here," he says, obviously irritated that he needed to.

"Why can't I sleep on the couch downstairs?" she argues.

"Because I'm not stupid enough to think you won't try to escape while I'm asleep."

"And how is making me sleep in your bed supposed to stop me?"

He looks at her like she's an idiot.

"Because you wouldn't even make it out of bed if you tried."

She can only stare at him wide-eyed and wonder how this has become her life — kidnapped by her best friend and held captive above a strip club in the city she ran away from by a mercenary for powers that no one is supposed to know she has. She can feel her head reeling again.

Satisfied with her inability to argue, he lays back down and rolls onto his side.

She stumbles around to the other side of the bed and climbs in, hardly relieved when she sees his eyes are closed. She lays back onto the unclaimed pillow and tugs the covers all the way up to her nose. She exhales weakly and closes her eyes, acutely aware of his presence next to her, even though he is completely still.

He's very much awake.


End file.
